Buckle Up, America: The Narcissist in Chief and the Family Court of a Nation

The parallels between what’s happening in our nation and what happens to victims of abuse in family court are stark. The Narcissist in Chief uses corrupt systems to further harm his victims—to exact revenge for rejection and separation from his toxicity.

It’s chaos—thrown from every direction, meant to intimidate, confuse, and provoke emotional response.

See? She’s crazy.

Make no mistake: we everyday Americans are the children in this metaphor. We’re being used as pawns for our abusive father to punish our mother for having the audacity to leave him—or for daring to punch back at his inflammatory and false allegations.

Life in the Courtroom

We’ve been in court for almost ten years now. The court originally ordered 50/50 custody, ignoring that our father never contributed to our care during the marriage. We saw what he did to our mother with our own eyes. But the court said, “He didn’t hurt you,” so we were ordered to spend half our lives with him.

Once he got the 50/50 he never really wanted, he slipped back into his old patterns of abuse and neglect. Eventually, the court adjusted custody—back to Mom, with Dad getting standard visitation.

Of course, Dad went on a rampage. How dare they take away the 50 percent custody he never really wanted! He got angrier. We didn’t want to go to his house anymore—he was mean and relentless, always saying terrible things about our mother.

Then he took Mom back to court. This time, he claimed she was sabotaging his relationship with us. That’s why, he said, we didn’t want to go with him. We were too scared to tell anyone the truth—that we were scared of him. We learned that going along with whatever he said was the only way to stay safe.

The judge believed him.

He got full custody. We were allowed to see Mom only two hours a month—under supervision—so she couldn’t “say mean things that make us scared of Dad.”

We didn’t remember her ever doing that, but maybe we just forgot.

Our grades dropped. We withdrew. We got angry, confused, and lost.

Our therapist talked to Dad a lot and told him things we’d said in confidence. We stopped trusting her, started saying what we thought Dad wanted to hear—even mean things about Mom. It made him less angry, for a little while.

Mom kept fighting for us. We kind of wished she’d stop—because Dad’s rage always followed her attempts to protect us.

He said he’d never let us go back, no matter what “that stupid judge” said.

We were too young to recognize the pattern. Too young to know that between 2003 and 2009, 188 children were murdered by a parent in homicide-suicide cases—76% of those by fathers. And that 81% of those fathers were involved in custody or marital disputes.

The Pattern Never Changes

Narcissists don’t like to lose. They don’t like accountability. They will stop at nothing to maintain control—even if it means destroying everything around them.

They’ll burn their own house down before they face the truth.

Or take a backhoe to the East Wing.

What happens in family court isn’t isolated—it’s a reflection of how systems reward manipulation over truth.

When power matters more than integrity, when the abuser controls the narrative, the victims—whether they’re children, citizens, or whole communities—lose faith in justice.

But recognizing the pattern is the beginning of change.

Survivors already know this: the moment you name the abuse, the spell starts to break.

Buckle up, America.